Buffett Gives $50 Million to Stop Spread of Nukes

December 3, 2010; Source: AOL News | In Vienna last week, Warren Buffett pledged a contribution of $50 million dollars in an initiative called the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI)—a new plan aimed at preventing the spread of atomic bombs.

The U.S. and other governments have provided a 200 percent match giving the initiative $150 million to begin its work. Much of the money will be spent on establishing a nuclear fuel bank, which will house reactor grade uranium. The hypothesis is that the availability of the uranium will discourage countries from establishing their own uranium programs.

For his part Buffet sees the money as a worthwhile investment. “If the project sounds like a good one and has any real chance of reducing the probabilities of the terrible use of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, I’m prepared to put up significant money,” he said.

And yet the investment puts Buffett—a single billionaire philanthropist—on equal footing with sovereign governments on issues of world security. And the goal of a world without nuclear weapons, says former Democratic Senator Sam Nunn, is becoming more distant. Currently nine countries possess nuclear weapons worldwide. How do readers think and feel about this?—Ruth McCambridge

Ruth is Editor in Chief of the Nonprofit Quarterly. Her background includes forty-five years of experience in nonprofits, primarily in organizations that mix grassroots community work with policy change. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Ruth spent a decade at the Boston Foundation, developing and implementing capacity building programs and advocating for grantmaking attention to constituent involvement.